Before Fingerprints: Bertillon Cards

By ALLISON HARRELL
Texian Time Machine & Outreach Coordinator

We featured the Blue Ridge murder-along activity a few weeks ago that detailed the first case solved by fingerprints in Fort Bend County. But what was used to identify people before fingerprints were commonplace?
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Alphonse Bertillon was a French police officer who wanted a better way to identify criminals. Soon after the rise of photography, he standardized the use of the mugshot. He also popularized a series of measurements (called "anthropometry") that could be taken to identify an individual. These measurements could include height, length of arms, trunk, cheek width, right ear length and others.

Several police forces all over the world used his system of identification for years until problems with the system couldn’t be ignored. In 1903, Kansas police found that a person they had just arrested had the exact same measurements as another person who was already in jail. This type of mistake led many police departments to search for a better way to identify and differentiate people.

Example: The Bertillon Measurements of Charles Clark, who was arrested for burglary in 1908.

Bertillon Card Activity

Materials

• Measuring Tape (If you don’t have a measuring tape, you can use a piece of string or yarn and a yard stick or tape measure. Make sure that you don't stretch the yarn when using it to measure!)
• Pencil
• Bertillon card  (DOWNLOAD HERE) 

Instructions

• Using the attached worksheet and a measuring tape, fill out the Bertillon card. If you have any questions about what each measurement is, refer to the diagram on the other half of the page